Heyo!

In the case you haven't seen the NGTH results, please check them out here! I wanna take a moment to congratulate both the creators and discoverers of every single gem that won the competition - there were a lot of entries and quite a few high-quality ones at that too!

I wanna take the time to reflect on the process that happened with the NGTH, as well as talk about the NGADM and a few other personal updates.

NGTH Reflection

The idea for the NGTH came to me back around November/December when I was looking back at the NG Wiki's History page. I saw that something that haunted Tom was that the last NGTH prior to this years' - which happened all the way back in October 2011 - never saw itself through to completion. I wanted to give back to NG and bring a smile to peoples' faces, and looking at the Treasure Hunt's concept from the posts linked in the Wiki gave me interest because it was a unique competition style that I hadn't seen around on any site too often. So I proposed to Tom that I could revive the hunt, and it was through him that I found out someone else had the same idea - my co-host for the competition, @The-Great-One .

It was then that we came together and planned a lot of things out, including the timeframe of the competition, paying the creators as well as the winners, and other such details. We couldn't cover everything, especially since this was the first time the competition had been launched in some time and it definitely needed a tuneup, but I think we covered enough to bring interest back into the competition. There's still plenty of things to look back upon, so I want to reflect upon it as myself and TGO look to host it again in the future.

My biggest thing I wanted to look at is how A-rated content is considered. When the fact that A-rated content wasn't applicable for trophies came up early in the submission phase - a fact I didn't know about as I don't dabble with A-rated content on the site too much - it was dismissed because there wasn't a piece of A-rated content that broke the precedent of winning a Treasure Hunt. That was changed this year with the winner of the game category, Shoku's Treasures. While quality is always the focus of these competitions, and I will not deny that Shoku's Treasures won fairly and with quality in mind, my worry is that the entry pool will become saturated with A-rated content because of this loophole, so I may consider placing a certain other measure for A-rated entries to make sure they're still hidden gems, but not overpowering the entry pool. My initial thought is a view threshold where A-rated entries have to have below a certain view count at the time of their submission to the hunt, but that is a very early thought that'll need some extra fleshing out.

Speaking of fleshing things out - the judges. Before talking about things with regards to judges, I want to give a huge thank you to all the judges who helped out - @Capim and @MrShoeShine7 on animation, @BrandyBuizel and TGO on games, @Xinxinix and @Template88 on art, and @ZaneLittle and @Cyberdevil on audio. All of them were capable judges that had good tastes, and I would be fine bringing a majority of them back if they showed interest in the next time. I would, however, like to start organizing the next judging pool sooner rather than later. I also need to work out the kinks of the judging system to not compromise integrity but also give judges as much freedom as possible - the system used this year had that aim, but I'm not sure if it provided a lot of freedom or if it restricted judges on some fronts. That'll play into the screening process that will happen for new judges, since again I would like to not compromise integrity for judge freedom.

One other major thing I want to look at is automating the process of submitting entries for the Treasure Hunt. It was a lot of work for me to see each person's entry, go to the spreadsheet, add their name, vet the entries that person submitted, and then add it and all its info to the appropriate lists. Needless to say, it was time-consuming and could definitely be smoothed out, either by a Google form or maybe bribing PsychoGoldfish to do something for the site like how the Art Secret Santa has it. Automating can also help me write logs every day, as I can easily go into the lists that the automated process spits out and spend more time looking at entries and figuring out which ones I can showcase that day - or heck, I can even ask for judge input with that as well!

Lastly, I want to consider timing for the next hunt. I think the two-week timeframe for submissions worked out well, but the timing for when the competition happens is gonna be a bit of an issue. In January and February next year, there's gonna be another Flash Forward jam, Pixel Day, most likely an NG Winter Festival, and a potentially big ENA day given that the release of Dream BBQ is coming up soon. It'll be busy, so hosting it during those two months isn't gonna be ideal. The thought Tom and I have is to move it towards September-October, that way a prize pool can also be raised for it without interfering with another competition. I also want to shorten the judging phase quite a bit - this year I was extremely lenient since I know the judges have lives outside of NG, but it led to the judging phase being three months long. I think it could be quicker, even with 300 entries in one of the categories, but I need to find that balance between timeliness and leniency to figure that out.

Overall though, I think the first revival of the NGTH went really well given everything that we had to consider. I'm incredibly thankful for TGO being my partner-in-crime, stepping up as a game judge, offering advice and helping on the organizational side of things and helping to update the spreadsheet during a portion of the submission phase. I'm absolutely down to host this alongside him next year, and hopefully we can fix the things we need to fix and find the balances we need to find, but I'd say that with all things considered we had a really good competition this year.

I'm also down to hear more thoughts with the hunt and how things went this year. While I have a list of things I want to look at, I also realize I might be leaving a few things out or need to look at additional things too. If there's anything you want me to look at, let me know! I'm going to talk soon with TGO and include Tom on the conversations for the next hunt, since the year's almost halfway out and next year will come sooner than we think!

NGADM Update

Originally, I was planning to take up the hosting torch this year for the Newgrounds Audio Death Match. Due to things happening on my end, mentally and with IRL things, I am no longer able to host. If there is anyone willing to do so in my absence, please let me know. If there are also individuals willing to become judges for the ADM, please reach out to me as well. Note that both potential judges and hosts are subject to being reviewed by audio moderators to ensure we choose someone based on quality.

As a heads up: the total commitment time for the ADM is usually from late June to October/November, both as a host and as a judge. Main responsibilities for hosting include determining the format of the competition, reaching out for promotional materials, creating materials for the judges, and so on, so hopping on board sooner rather than later will definitely help with that. Main responsibilities for judges include checking that each song qualifies, judging all works fairly, and assisting the organizer(s) with whatever is needed.

Personal Updates

As you may have heard, and might probably notice, I have removed my Twitter from my links and will be deactivating my account on there briefly. Given all that is happening on the platform, what and specifically who introduced and basically yelled at me to make an account (spoilers, they turned out to be a jerk), and that my mental health hasn't been the best while on that platform, I'm hopeful that this'll help me out a bit.

What it also means is that I'm downscaling once again back to NG in terms of my music and general audience. I have no qualms with it - I honestly consider NG to be one of if not the best of the platforms out there - but I know it'll be jarring for some. I'm not planning on going anywhere, and my other platforms are still accessible as well, but that'll be a bit of a heads up with that. A majority of my updates and communications will be through news posts like these here on NG, and I think I might share some music I enjoy occasionally as a pick-me-up. We'll see how that goes.

My mental health has otherwise been up and down, mostly for personal reasons I'm not comfortable with disclosing. I'm gonna keep my head up with everything going on and look out for myself, the way I always have and always will. I will be placing emphasis on prepping for IRL matters a little more now, but I will still be willing to work with others and create works here on NG and beyond. I can't wait to show what I got soon, because there's a ton of music that's coming up with projects and it'll be fun to show it all off!